I don't think there are many of us left using the Beaglebone/Hermes/Cronus. It seems development for the Botic driver has been dropped. I have been using GentooPlayer but the developer no longer supports the BB. He said it's not worth his time. This is really too bad because the BB is much superior to the RPi for our purposes. One alternative is supplied by IanCanada. He has a lot of products and it takes some time to sort them out. Just thought I'd post my experiences with this in case anyone is interested.
I use HQPlayer on a separate PC to convert everything to DSD256 and send over the network to the BBB.
I purchased a FiFoPi from IanCanada along with his PurePi power supply. I connected the BuffaloPro to the FifoPi using I2s. Just to get started I loaded RoPieee on a RPi4. Had to choose "Generic I2s DAC" nothing else worked. The best I could get was DSD64 using DOP. This is apparently a limitation of Linux on the RPi. The BBB does not have this limitation even though it uses Linux as well.
Initially I felt the sound was improved and more detailed but a little forward in the upper midrange. Bass was very good. I'm told that the clocks need time to burn in so I listened to this setup for a week or so. Ultimately it became a bit fatiguing. I could maybe make some adjustments in my speaker crossovers to help. For now I have gone back to the BBB/Cronus but substituting the clocks from IanCanada. This is a happy medium with bit more detail but not quite so searing.
I use HQPlayer on a separate PC to convert everything to DSD256 and send over the network to the BBB.
I purchased a FiFoPi from IanCanada along with his PurePi power supply. I connected the BuffaloPro to the FifoPi using I2s. Just to get started I loaded RoPieee on a RPi4. Had to choose "Generic I2s DAC" nothing else worked. The best I could get was DSD64 using DOP. This is apparently a limitation of Linux on the RPi. The BBB does not have this limitation even though it uses Linux as well.
Initially I felt the sound was improved and more detailed but a little forward in the upper midrange. Bass was very good. I'm told that the clocks need time to burn in so I listened to this setup for a week or so. Ultimately it became a bit fatiguing. I could maybe make some adjustments in my speaker crossovers to help. For now I have gone back to the BBB/Cronus but substituting the clocks from IanCanada. This is a happy medium with bit more detail but not quite so searing.
Thanks for this information and your observations. I have been wishing to try HQPlayer as the source of my crossover filters. But circumstances have been such that my entire BBB system has been packed up for two years now and it will be next winter before any time exists to play with it. I think it still holds promise.
Concerning the harshness you are experiencing, I’m curious about the drivers you’re using. I have a completely speculative theory about the effects of lower frequency digital sources on cone and dome material resonances. … and, there is a DIY approach to calming the drivers directly! But it’s a little hit-or-miss and somewhat arcane. PM me if you’re curious. When I’m in town, perhaps a coffee meeting would be the way to go…. But unfortunately, I have nothing currently running for an audition.
Concerning the harshness you are experiencing, I’m curious about the drivers you’re using. I have a completely speculative theory about the effects of lower frequency digital sources on cone and dome material resonances. … and, there is a DIY approach to calming the drivers directly! But it’s a little hit-or-miss and somewhat arcane. PM me if you’re curious. When I’m in town, perhaps a coffee meeting would be the way to go…. But unfortunately, I have nothing currently running for an audition.